A difficult day - informed my girlfriend
 

This was hard! Our relationship has been difficult for a while, but I still care deeply. And today I had to hurt her, and be honest. Lots of tears...and I feel selfish - but this is something I'm gonna do - and I hope she joins me at parts. But we'll see. She loves being on the bike...we'll see.

Deflated, questioning, sad, and strangely relieved, cause this day had to happen......

sigh.....

I am leaving to go RTW in a year, if things are open enough. That was the news I broke today.

Been there. Now you have to settle the issue, is she more important to you than your bike and trip?

The bike is an imamate object with passing attachment. The trip is a spiritual venture first and foremost. I'm going. She has to decide if she wants to be part of it, or move on. We are still talking.....that's good.

I'm not a young man. The trip is partly a reaction to being a caregiver for over 11 years, and continuing.....dementia really sucks, and watching someone you love more than your own life slowly fade away steals a part of you.

I need to be away - for an extended time - to never see these streets laden with ghosts and layers of memories. This is my last adventure.....really it is. And I'm going.....

...are YOU important to HER is the critical corollary. If she values you, and your soul, then she'll support you.
Best of luck!

Thank you. I really needed to hear this....time will tell. .

There are quite a few ways of looking at this. For one, don't be so certain this is your "last adventure," or even more so your last chance for adventure. For another thing, best you try not to think in polarities: she decides whether to be a part of it or if not, to move on. She can support you with or without joining you, and YOU can support HER while still taking the trip of a lifetime. You can wait for each other--this is commonly done--in various ways.

I could go on and on...but I'm trying not to do that so much. FWIW, the last time I was in that position--before I started riding but with a backpack and a year off--my g.f. decided at the last moment to join me, which worked out perfectly fine. Throwing down the gauntlet or thinking either of you know what's really going on a year or more in advance seems to me a bit premature.

Hope it works out, in whatever undreamed-of form!

Mark

Just what i was thinking Grant, the old saying goes "if you love someone set them free, if they return they are yours, if they don`t they never was" or something along them lines i forget now, but its so true.

She should just say "have a safe trip, you know where i live" end of conversation.

Mezo.

I agree with Markharf - don’t be black and white, all or nothing. If we take any thing from Covid it’s learning to be flexible.

I went travelling in my early 20s, I had a girlfriend I really loved and to be honest I thought we’d get married etc....
But..... I had to do the travelling thing. I asked her to go with me but it’s just not her thing so she said no. She also decided that we should have a clean break, I think she wanted me to feel free - I had thought at one stage that I might emigrate to Australia.

Anyway when I came home I still wanted to travel and she still didn’t - even though we loved each other we didn’t rekindle our relationship. In the end we both made the right choice.

I would just go but communicate to her that she can get involved at any time, then, enjoy the trip and just see what happens.

PS I can see you’ve had a hard time lately but, personally, I don’t think it’s good to travel in order to escape. I believe it’s better to leave in a happy state of mind. Difficult, no doubt but just my thoughts.

Well, you've told her something is more important to you then her. Good luck with your trip, if it's not too long then maybe she'll wait for you. If it's an extended trip, well, you've made your choice.

Happy is a transient, impermanent state that fluctuates day by day, moment by moment. I do not seek happiness in my travels, nor in my life. I seek a deeper state of awareness where happiness and unhappiness are the same. Just passing emotions that are both the essence of life, and nothing at all.

I'm not traveling to escape, or run away. And yes, life has been challenging, and also being a caregiver has been the most important and wonderful thing I have ever done with my life.

This trip is about a lot of things. One is attachment. To let go of everything I know. To explore MY life through the eyes of others. To see a world when there's one to see, and I'm not too old. And to do the two things that I've done why whole life as a living - Music, Motorcycles. Its about challenging myself to think, see and react differently - to break patterns. To learn a language, get out of the comfort zone, and feel truly fully completely present to the moment.

Ya, you don't need to travel the world to do all the above - but it sure puts you in a good place. I have ridden a lot, in India, all over North America. Its time to go.

Thank you for the post....

Nice one, have a great trip

It's taken me 41 years to learn this simple rule.

Don't commit your life or heart to someone who you are not really compatible with long term.

If you think you're going to spend a life travelling the world, don't get involved with anyone who doesn't share that same dream.

Said the proud father of the baby teds :mchappy:

We will ask you again in 20 years, how happy you are in your life jeiger Do you not think you could be feel good with?

Therefore I`m (47y) just now very very in love and are thinking about kids with my love (35y) and skipping further travelling - what do you suggest?

Think with 110`000 Travelkilometers and over one year living in my car - sometimes it could be enough? Or does travelling really outperform everything else in our life?

To settle down, is a own adventure - indipendend if the kids will come or not.

I feel the travelbug is there very small - but still there. But there is too the love of my live, and I`m shure I would not be happy to be on tour without her.. And I`m shure, If i really love to go, she will join - just to make me happy. Same as I would..

Surfy

My fiancée also loves travel. But travel with a baby and no job is not my idea of fun at all.

I'm 40 and my fiancée is 37. We both have no children.

We planned to have a couple of more years of selfish free years and travel together and then think about a family. 2020-2021 was meant to be the years of these travels but say no more about that.

I don't agree with people who have a baby and then leave the family behind for months whilst they do a selfish trip. For many reasons. And I'm sure the mother would certainly be unimpressed too. In these days, no woman would stand for that. It's not the world we live in anymore. Not in the West anyway.

If we have a family in the next couple of years then I will still travel. But I think that it will be 2-4 weeks. You can do a lot of that time. The times of my 6 month plus trips are behind me already. They are far too expensive and as I get older, they are far too disruptive to my business and career. (I'm self employed).

Any travel alone when you have a partner is a negotiation.

My partner works for the NHS. She gets 3 weeks holidays a year. Like most people. I am self employed. I work like a bitch all summer and then take two months off in the winter and try to escape. This is obviously causing a few rifts.

We are yet to find the compromise. I maybe divorced before I am married :D

Oh dear, all this stuff is so much more difficult than the usual what overhead underhanger should I use.

People come to travel for all sorts of reasons, both positive and negative. A few years ago I met someone on a bike trip while we were both sheltering from a rain storm under a bridge somewhere in Nevada or California. His story was that he'd been married for thirty years and worked the same job all that time to support his wife and family. The kids had grown up and left home and one day a few months earlier his wife had suddenly said she was now unhappy and was leaving as she needed 'to find herself'. A few weeks later she still hadn't returned so he decided he'd 'find himself' as well. He sold the house, bought a bike (he'd never ridden before so picked some sort of cruiser) and headed south. He'd been on the road for a few weeks when I met him and he was heading down to Mexico. He seemed happy enough - on the surface anyway - but whether the trip was actually proving cathartic or just papering over the cracks only he would know.

Quite where travel sits in the pecking order of desires obviously varies from person to person. I'd guess for many here it's rates quite highly but for others it's not something they're bothered about at all. I've heard it said (or read it anyway) that we're only entitled to one great passion in our lifetime, be it another person or an activity or a sport or even an idea, but once the flame is extinguished it can never be relit. It's never the same second time around. If that's the case and you're throwing everything up in the air to follow your passion it would make sense not only to be sure it really is what you want but what you're going to get from it is what you really want to achieve. To get that wrong, to throw away what is really important, is the first step down a road of regrets.

For those of us having to juggle travel with other responsibilities it seems to me it's easiest to get away when you either have nothing or you have everything. The bit in the middle where, to paraphrase Disney, it's more like "I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go" are the difficult times.

Well said.

I've travelled for the wrong reasons before. Ironically to escape a bad breakups up or family problems.

I've actually jacked in great jobs and committed financial suicide by going on long trips that I hoped would somehow fix my life.

I hated those trips as my head was in the wrong place and I usually came home after a month because everything and everyone was irritating me and I was just ruining my bank account and health trying to find happiness.

Happiness, inner peace and enjoyment is something that you carry inside of you. It doesn't exist on another continent. Just like sadness and misery can't simply be left behind.

I love the deepness of the talk here, what happens pretty often. Even when I`m missing some parts because my english is not skilled enough to read between the lines!

Wise words!

What lead us to do these trips! How reflected and analytic we should look into it? For shure my Adventure-Travelbug was alway there, did dream about since I was 15-16 years.

Guess my Transafrica did happens because I did get more out of my live, than I ever had expected by myself. Friends, Relationship, Income, Career - I never had guessed that I am able to get there.

Guess I never thought to be still alive at 40 too, to be honest. Had no plans whats next. Wile funds was raising there too a small crisis came - for what do I need that money for? Did not want kids, want adventure - an exchange for those many 60 hours weeks of hard hard work.

I had everything, more than expected by myself. Guess I didnt estimated what I got too.

Guess If my plans would had worked, my travelbug would be smaller afterwards. But out of 1-2 Years and a africa rountrip I just was able to do a transafrica in 2 months. Travelbug was still there.

Will give an long text if I go now through the next trips :mchappy:

Surfy

Wonderful post. I love your line up there, papering over the cracks....

The greatest passion of our life, must be life itself....Everything is in service of that - and not just the passion of being alive, but the passion of living for others. I have lived my life fully in the deep knowledge that one day I will pass from this world, and that every moment is precocious beyond measure. So I pursued music, and film, and art - and worked almost exclusively for myself - and my work was my passion...I refused to not LOVE what I was doing, even if the pay was less.....and I continue.

I have no children. I have an 89 year old mother with serious dementia - who I can still make laugh to tears....and see joy on her face when I visit (everyday).

And yes - a girlfriend - who is coming around to the new normal - and its looking like she is going to support me - we are still talking....

I'm not going travelling. I have no intension of returning to this place. I am combining my passions into one thing - an exploration of getting old, seeing the world, music, letting go, living every single second in, as a friend put it - LIFE SQUARED. This whole thing is a fully natural extension of what I've been doing for my whole life....And, again - I'm not on a trip - coming back and going out again.....This is one way. A lifestyle. And a way of being.

Regrets: none. Mistakes many. It has taken YEARS for me to accept who I am, and embrace the good and the bad - to work on myself every moment - but to never be embarrassed about the person I am - even when I'm an idiot...cause I take myself lightly - but the journey seriously.

Grant and Suzan - you have built something really special in this website/forum. Honest, thinking like minded souls - these few days have been difficult - but what an opportunity to learn - and the words and discussion on this have been tremendous.

I bow to all of you - Namaste

Would you be up for her joining you every few months for a week or so?

It could be an exciting way for her to see more of the world and to participate in your adventure without having to take many months off.

That's the plan - in places that are safe. And for as long as she wants....But unlike me, she requires comfort and that will mean more hotels, and that is more costly - so balance.....

Back before wife, kids, dogs, mortgage, bad health, unexpected bad luck, it was easy for me to take off and not worry. The more of these you get-and you may well get them all-it becomes harder to do long trips. If you don't have many situations it would be good to go now, because you can never be sure what's going to happen in the next second. As was said, if she doesn't want to go and doesn't want you to go, you may end up with no way to go anywhere. Don't get me wrong, I am thankful for the wife and kids, but I remember the exact day it was fix the bike or spend the money on the rug rats. They won out because they were more important.

To sum this thread up
We all (or most of us ) travel for a different reason ...................:offtopic::

Renton in Trainspotting says it all.

(I'm mildly sorry about the profanities, but we've all heard them....
and anyway the website will edit them out with ****'s)

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a ****ing big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of ****ing fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the **** you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing ****ing junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, ****ed-up brats you have spawned to replace yourselves.

Choose your future. Choose life . . .

Well you only get one go at life and tbh I could write a book on regrets , but when I balance it out with what I have done then I'm pretty happy with it .
My dad is on his last legs now , cancer has won I'm afraid But he travelled the world on the Royal Yacht in the 50s and 60s and has seen things very few people get to see......no he wont make it to 90 but he had an amazing 80 years . Haven't quite equalled his travels but have had a bloody good go .
Basically it's your choice..........dont end up in a rocking chair aged 100 with millions in the bank thinking I'm rich....haven't done anything but I'm rich

I actually did write a book on regrets (or one big regret anyway) :rolleyes2:


And look what happened to him - either a heart attack in a gym at 46 or best known for riding RTW, depending on whether you're talking about the character or the actor.

I think a lot of people have a disdain for a conventional route through life when the road is mostly ahead of them, particularly if you're at the 'one art O level' rather than the 'PhD' end of the spectrum (Rat Race by The Specials). There's not much individuality in following Renton's list - unless you come from a wealthy enough background to see that it can work to your benefit. Money begets money as they say. However life has a habit of making you re-evaluate what you value. And that, of course, is where this discussion started.